Federal prosecutors on Friday announced the arrest of a 51-year-old Lackawanna County man in connection with a IRS scam and online loan scheme.

A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Hiteshkumar Patel, of South Abington Township, on multiple counts of mail and wire fraud, extortion and aggravated identity theft charges. Patel's initial court appearance is set for June 29 in Wilkes-Barre.

He remained in the Camp Hill prison Friday night.

The indictment against Patel alleges he executed a scam where people falsely represented themselves as Internal Revenue Service agents.

Potential victims were told they had to immediately make a monetary payment in order to satisfy outstanding IRS debts or fees.

Victims were threatened with "severe consequences" if they did not immediately comply such as federal agents knocking on their door, notification to employers, garnishment of wages and even arrest.

Victims were instructed to remit payments to a number of different individuals via U.S. mail, Western Union, and MoneyGrams.

Prosecutors allege the money was received by Patel or members of the unlawful telemarketing organization and unindicted co-conspirators.

Prosecutors estimate that Patel and his co-conspirators received hundreds of thousands of dollars from victims.

As part of another scheme, Patel allegedly ran an illegitimate online loan business. Victims of that scheme were instructed to make monetary payments to process their application and pay fees for expediting the loan and insurance.

IRS scams have ballooned across the country lately, even topping the "dirty dozen" list put out by the IRS as a continuing serious tax scam.

"The IRS has seen a surge of these phone scams as scam artists threaten police arrest, deportation, license revocation and other things," according to an IRS statement issued in February. "The IRS reminds taxpayers to guard against all sorts of con games."

The IRS Commissioner Josh Koskinen said if taxpayers are "surprised to be hearing from us, then you're not hearing from us."